What makes a good blog template?

[balsimon]

Hi,

I'm going to be setting up a new blog
soon. Wordpress templates abound and I'm
hoping for some guidance.

1 column? 2? 3?

Clean look or busy? (seems intuitive that
a clean look would be preferred, but I'd
like to know from people who've done
either or both and know from experience)

Background: black on white for main text
area? Something different?

Overall color scheme... All other things
being equal, do colors make any difference
with respect to getting people to join
a newsletter? To look over an offer? To
buy?

Does anyone with a truly successful blog
just use the out-of-the-box template that
comes up when you first install Wordpress?

Do different styles of blogs that work well
in one niche work poorly in others (e.g.,
2-columns versus 3?)

What fonts for the masthead and what
font for the main text?

Should links be underlined in the main column?
Or just a different color?

Position of the navigation scheme? Along
the right or the left side? Do you duplicate
it along the top?

Are there any other factors that I should
take into account before I pour the foundation?

Regards,
Bal

[mookinman]

I too would be interested to see what people think about this.

Personally I always start off by finding a free wordpress template, and then editing it using the theme editor to suit the needs of the site I'm creating.

With regard to fonts, I generally tend to use sans-serif fonts as I find them easier to read than serif fonts like times new roman and georgia.

[sinboutkaska]

Hi Bal,

Good questions! I find that by sticking to a 'clean' look makes it easier on the eye for readers! There a plenty of themes in Wordpress and you can always change the theme as you go without losing your data.

I recommend that you purchase a domain name related to your business/cause you are blogging about and point your Wordpress blog to resolve your new domain name. Just gives it a professional look. The backend is still powered by Wordpress.

Take a look at mine - CreativeCashBlog.com for ideas! but its entirely up to you how you would like your blogpage to look!

Feel free to contact me if you have further questions!

[bgmacaw]

It depends on what my objective is for a blog.

If I were to setup a new primary flagship blog, I would go with a magazine style theme like I did with my current one (1st link in my sig). This style of theme looks good and users seem to like them. Color scheme and so forth is very much like a news site like CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, etc. With a nice, friendly, theme like this you'll have a leg up on getting RSS subscribers and regular readers, as long as your content is good, although conversion tends to low.

For niche marketing blogs, I go with a lot simpler layout in most cases and I may use ugly fonts (Comic MS Sans, Lucinda Handwriting, etc) and colors (bright green or light gray on black, medium gray on white, etc) to make the advertising stand out more than the content. Nobody subscribes to these blogs or returns to them but the consistent search engine traffic converts quite well.

[raphy652]

hey... from where I can get templates for a good price?

[balsimon]

Originally Posted by raphy652

hey... from where I can get templates for a good price?

You can get many that are free from WordPress.org.

WordPress › WordPress Themes

Many (most?) are free.

Hopefully I'm being responsive. Let me know if not.

Regards,
Bal

[balsimon]

Thanks everyone -

A follow up question...

If your site is primarily an authority site,
do you set up your blog one way versus how
you would set it up if you were using it
for product announcements or as a
social venue, etc.

If so, would that impact your color scheme,
font choices, or other visual elements
in any way?

Thanks and regards,
Bal

[balsimon]

I appreciate the direction Diego,

Cutline does look interesting.

Another question that I don't know the
answer to...

Behind the scenes - do different themes
scale the same way or are there significant
differences? Do they all treat plug-ins the
same way or are there differences I should
consider?

And how does Cutline fit in with the answers?

Are there other themes that people use *and love?*

Thanks!

Regards,
Bal

[Chris_Willow]

2 column widget ready, clean looking, nothing too fany.
That works for me, but I'm still interested in other opinions for my upcoming blog.

Chris

[Warrior Simon]

I just wanted to share this source because I got it as well from the WF and it's so cool:
Flexibility Theme for WordPress
you can change pretty everything from within the WP admin panel, so if you want to test different styles you don't have to install another theme, just change the parameters.

I've read that it's best to have the text column on the left side, better for SEO purposes because Google starts to read the page from the upper left corner, but don't quote me on that...
;-)

[jhongren]

Hi Bal.

I have some inputs and hope it is helpful for you.

I'm going to be setting up a new blog
soon. Wordpress templates abound and I'm
hoping for some guidance.

1 column? 2? 3?

I think 2 columns is good. You can use the sidebar for optin box, blog rolls, blog comments updates, pages and so on.

3 columns work out fine too. Personally my wedding blog has 3 columns with the sidebars at both ends. So it is easy for my readers to read the main content in the center of the screen.

Clean look or busy? (seems intuitive that
a clean look would be preferred, but I'd
like to know from people who've done
either or both and know from experience)

Background: black on white for main text
area? Something different?

Clean is always the best. Black or dark grey text against a white background.

Overall color scheme... All other things
being equal, do colors make any difference
with respect to getting people to join
a newsletter? To look over an offer? To
buy?

For the color scheme, it really depends on the niche or topic you are blogging about. The bottom line is pleasant for the eyes to read.

Does anyone with a truly successful blog
just use the out-of-the-box template that
comes up when you first install Wordpress?

Initially my blog theme is taken from wordpress themes free templates...but as it gets more successful, I started getting paid themes with customised header image and even a logo.

Do different styles of blogs that work well
in one niche work poorly in others (e.g.,
2-columns versus 3?)

You can check out from Google and model the top 10 best blogs in your niche. This is the fastest track to your blog success.

What fonts for the masthead and what
font for the main text?

Should links be underlined in the main column?
Or just a different color?

Different themes comes with different text font and size. Make it easy to be read and test it out for different screen size and browsers.

Position of the navigation scheme? Along
the right or the left side? Do you duplicate
it along the top?

Normally readers read from left to right. so have a navigation bar at the top and maybe you want to leave some links like "contact us" in the footer.

Are there any other factors that I should
take into account before I pour the foundation?

Start taking action now and fine tune along the way. You will know what you want to improve on or even take away as time goes by.

My 2 cents,
John

[spriyada]

When I am first starting off, I use DoshDosh's ProSense template. It has adsense build into it. So I like it. You can find these by going here:doshdosh.com/prosense-adsense-ready-seo-theme/

[balsimon]

Great - I appreciate everybody's kind
and thoughtful replies.

I think I've got more than I need to *think*
about. Now it's time to take some action on
this based on what I've got here.

If you don't mind, I'll continue asking questions
in this thread as I go forward; mainly so that
I have all the information in one place that
can serve as a kind of ongoing reference.

Best Regards,
Bal